Beyond the Dirt and Blood
by Jessie Dark
Summary: Goyjo grieves.


Gojyo shook the dirt and dust out of his eyes and looked around. Behind them the side of the mountain fell in on itself, obscuring the doorway to hell from which they had fled. Next to him Sanzo cursed someone and Goku complained he was hungry and thirsty. Gojyo turned his head and his world stopped.

Carefully the hanyou stood and scanned the area. It was not as if there were anywhere for a fully grown man to hide. Never mind one sporting a tiny dragon as a shoulder pin. Gojyo turned twice around the clearing then began to walk back toward the cliff, formerly a cave opening.

Behind him Goku began. "Sanzo. Hakkai?"

"He didn't get out." Sanzo's voice was flat, cool and matter of fact.

"Well. We have to go get him then." Goku sounded calm, freakishly so. The brat understood. He just wanted to make Sanzo say it. Gojyo wondered if he could cut both their heads off, still their tongues, before one of them said IT.

"There's nothing to go back for. The mountain fell on him. On them." He could hear Sanzo standing up. "Looks like we walk the rest of the way west." Gojyo decided he could cut the bastard's head off later. With a rusty spoon. Gojyo stopped where the cave had opened and began to scrabble at the loose dirt and rocks, bringing a small landslide down on his own head.

"Common Goku, he's just as stupid as ever. He'll either kill himself or catch up with us."

"Gojyo?" Goku's voice was broken and uncertain, but Gojyo had no time for it now. He was going to dig this damn mountain up and get Hakkai, and the blasted dragon, out. Then they'd get Goku and make Sanzo beg for a ride. Gojyo must have fantasized about ways to humiliate Sanzo for 5 or 6 hours when he suddenly realized he was sprawled on the ground and couldn't get up. He hurt everywhere, feeling weak, dizzy and confused. He needed Hakkai to bring him some water.

Gojyo rolled over to call out to his friend for a canteen when he spied his own bloody fingers. Hakkai wasn't bringing him anything. Not ever again. Gojyo laid there in the dirt and considered dying. He hurt, he was thirsty and during one of the landslides he'd gotten his arm messed up. He really wished a couple of youkai would come along and finish him off. Rolling back over he wiped the dust turned to mud from tears and sweat and fumbled out a cigarette. It took him three tries to light it; his left arm was seriously messed up. The drag in released something and Gojyo began to sob, lying there on his back staring at the darkening sky. Somewhere along the line he began to yell and curse. He cursed Hakkai, and Sanzo and the three heads, Heaven Hell and the last bar they stopped at.

"Done?" If he'd had any energy Gojyo would have leapt to his feet to confront the person speaking, but instead he rolled his head and glared at Sanzo.

"The fuck you doin' here?" he demanded; too angry to be embarrassed.

"I needed a light." The monk plucked the forgotten lighter off Gojyo's chest and lit his own smoke.

"Why are you here?" Gojyo tried to fumble out another cigarette and finally managed to get it lit.

"I came to get you. The baka cried himself to sleep. I need you to deal with him now."

Gojyo turned his head away. "He's your problem. I gotta' finish this."

"Killing yourself?" Sanzo blew smoke at the slide of dirt and rock. The mound that had broken Gojyo's skin and stolen his strength, and looked unchanged. "That wasn't his intention."

"Who's?"

"Hakkai. He shoved you and the brat after me. He knew the risks. I hardly think he'd expect you to waste your life, pointless as it is most days, in an even more pointless attempt to dig his bones out of a fucking mountain. Let them lie. Let him lie. He's been dead for almost 2 years. Let him finally lay down."

"You cold hearted bastard." Gojyo crawled to his feet and staggered back to the pile of dirt. He wanted to beat Sanzo, scream at him. "Where is Goku?"

"There's a farm house a few miles up from here, deserted, I left him there, asleep. He's afraid you are going to die too."

"Hakkai is not dead."

Gojyo considered the wall in front of him. There had to be a more effective way to dig through it. He tipped his head, studying the problem from another angle. Maybe he could try levers? Pull out some of the boulders? Get an opening to get in?

The cold steel of the pistol didn't even surprise him. "I could put you out of your misery now." Sanzo offered.

"Do it. Please." And Gojyo wasn't kidding. He realized suddenly that Hakkai was lost, buried there under a mountain and no amount of cursing and digging was going to bring him back. There was nothing, no last word, no symbols, just blank, unfeeling dirt and hard immobile rock. Hakkai and Hakaryuu were gone as surely and the flame when he closed his lighter.

"I can't do this." Gojyo told the rocks, the dirt, and the man behind him.

"You can." The gun pressed harder into the back of his skull, the only thing real in a world gone crazy and lost. "You have to. There is a mission."

"Fuck the mission. Hakkai—"

"Hakkai loved you. And you throw it away like this? You aren't any better than that broken woman he loved." Sanzo's voice was a low snarl. "He gave up everything for her, and she threw it away rather than face the pain of living. You gonna' do that? You gonna' throw away life, and memory and hope because you are too weak, too cowardly, to go on without your best friend? What about Goku? Where does he go? He has two people left in this world; you're going to take one of them away from him?"

Gojyo heard the hammer click and the safety go on. "What about me?"

Gojyo turned around then, staring blankly. "I don't understand?"

"WHAT ABOUT ME?" Sanzo was glaring his blue-purple eyes bright in the setting sun. "I don't get to cry. I don't get to give up. Who the fuck is going to light my cigarette if you crawl in that hole and die with your best friend?"

Gojyo stood blankly. Sanzo, cold, distant, haughty, and his eyes too bright in the darkening night. Gojyo swung wide and let Sanzo's tackle take him to the ground. Their punches were weak and in the end Gojyo sprawled; his face in Sanzo's neck while the monk cursed him and swore, and pretended the wash of moisture was only sweat, and they were too weak from fighting to move, not that they needed to hold onto one another.

"We have to get back to Goku."

"Will he be ok?" Gojyo stood, hauling Sanzo with him.

"He'll have to be. Tomorrow we start west again."


End file.
